When you look at or feel a plastic component, you would usually assume that it’s made of one type of plastic. However, some plastic products are actually made using two different types of resin, sometimes more. You are probably familiar with this application which can be seen in plastic toothbrushes that have a rubberized grip. The main body of the toothbrush is made of a rigid plastic, while the grip is made of a rubberized plastic. Even though there are two different types of plastic present, both were formed at the same time using two-shot molding.

GM Nameplate’s (GMN) plastics division in Beaverton, OR recently created a video that demonstrates this two-shot molding process. The process is called two-shot molding because there are two different resins being injected by two separate barrels. There is a primary barrel, which injects the first resin, forming a rigid substrate in most cases. The secondary barrel then injects a different resin on top of or surrounding the region of the first substrate.

Depending on the size and intricacy of the part, you can design the tool to make several parts in each cycle. In the video, we see that two parts are completed during each cycle. On the left side, the rigid substrate is injected by the primary barrel and forms the backbone of the two components. The tool then rotates 180 degrees, and the rubberized plastic is injected onto those two pieces by the secondary barrel. While this is being done, two more rigid substrates are made at the same time again by the primary barrel on the left side. After the pieces are injected by the secondary barrel, an end-of-arm tool picks up the completed parts, and then the tool rotates 180 degrees once more, ready to start a new cycle.

Two-shot molding is ideal for higher volume projects, as more engineering is used in designing the two-shot molding tool. The tooling used for two-shot molding is intricate because it must inject two different plastic resins simultaneously, but only in certain features of the part. Two-shot molding is a much more efficient process for high-volume projects compared to conventional over-molding, where you use two separate tools to manufacture parts with different resins. Due to this efficient output, two-shot molding is frequently used in the automotive and medical industries.

Click on the video below to see the two-shot molding process for yourself!